


The Thousand and One Baratheon Nights

by nerddowell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (in that he's cute but not attractive until he gets old enough to grow into it), Coming of Age, M/M, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Slow Burn, Storytelling, caring Renly is the Renly I need, ugly duckling!Loras, yes another one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 08:04:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11619402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: There was a fearsome storm raging outside, rain lashing at the windows and wind pounding the walls of the castle so that it boomed and echoed like a giant’s stone drum, the waves reaching high against the cliffs below. Loras was trembling for all that he had set his jaw, biting his lip hard so as not to give away his fright. Renly, who had grown up in the castle and yet remembered the terror storms had inspired in him as a young child, wordlessly lifted the duvet and allowed the boy to crawl in next to him, huddling close under the coverlet.‘Are you afraid, Loras?’ he asked softly.Currently on hiatus due to ill health.





	The Thousand and One Baratheon Nights

**Author's Note:**

> This is 100% a gift to [Merc](https://assistantdirector--janson.tumblr.com) on Tumblr, who responded to my desperate calls for someone to vomit all of my Loras/Renloras feels at, and who I feel deserves it purely for putting up with that from me.
> 
> Loras squires at Storm's End for five years in this story, from the age of ten until he is knighted at fifteen.

Robert had been the one to break the news to Renly. Well, technically it had been Penrose’s voice reading Robert’s words which had revealed that he was to be sent a squire, but it had been the King nevertheless. It struck Renly as a little strange that Robert should send him a boy from the Reach, as though he’d already forgotten his own rebellion, and he was sure that Stannis would no doubt have had more than a few choice words for his brother. There was nothing Stannis could do about it, however; the deal was struck and Renly was dutifully following through with it. So he found himself lingering by the castle gates at Storm’s End watching out for a figure of any sort heading towards him.

Night was beginning to fall by the time the boy arrived. The sun was setting over Shipbreaker Bay, the sky painted deep orange and burning yellows as the sun sank over the waves, spray from the sea clinging to Renly’s hair and skin and clothes and making the air taste of salt. The boy was hidden almost entirely from view astride his horse by the folds of an emerald-green cloak embroidered with golden roses, too big on the child’s skinny frame to be anything but a hand-me-down from an elder sibling or perhaps even the father. Renly tried to remember how many children Lord Mace had; the last reports he had heard were four, three sons and a daughter, the eldest around three years older than Renly himself and the youngest five his junior.

He stepped forward to greet the boy, who swung himself down from his horse with ill grace, shoving the hood back off his face to fix his new lord with a bold gaze. He wasn’t an attractive child. His skin, tanned from his summer in the Reach, was nevertheless a blotchy mix of muddy brown (where the sun had touched it) and a flush of red like an old man fond of his wine (where it had burned). His hair was wild, curls frizzy and tangled as though he’d been dragged through a hedge on his way to Storm’s End, and he was gangly despite his diminutive stature, all knobbly knees and sharp little elbows. He glared at Renly from beneath the mop of his hair, and Renly, somewhat taken aback, squinted back at him.

In fact, his comeliest feature was his eyes, the colour of mead – a sparkling, clear brown. Renly, infamous already for his obsession with the aesthetic, tried not to let his disappointment show. The boy’s chin tilted defensively, however, and Renly sighed inwardly.

‘Welcome to Storm’s End,’ he said as magnanimously as he could manage, with a sweeping arm gesture, and the boy looked around with a distinct lack of awe on his own face.

‘My lord,’ he said in a squeaky voice, the voice of a child half his age, and Renly had to fight back a wince.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Loras,’ the boy told him, still staring up at the castle. His lip curled slightly, fighting back amusement. No doubt the towering stone drum of Storm’s End, topped with its weatherbeaten crenellations and distinct lack of the creeping vines and flowers associated with great houses of the Reach, was a far cry from what the boy was used to in Highgarden. Renly had never been, but he’d heard tales of how beautiful the Tyrells’ residence was, how bright and airy and colourful. Turning his own gaze to the clifftop castle he himself lived in, Renly was needled on behalf of his home, and adopted a sterner tone of voice.

‘How old are you?’

‘Ten,’ Loras answered, with a note of challenge. Renly raised an eyebrow.

‘A boy of ten, and half the size I was at your age.’

‘I’m not you, my lord. It seems you take after your brother Robert. And your brother is… unnatural large, in my opinion.’

Penrose blustered beside Renly. ‘Keep your tongue, child! You speak of the King!’

‘Perhaps you have gotten confused between my brother and the elder Clegane?’ Renly asked. ‘Tall indeed Robert is, though even he still would stand in the Mountain’s shadow.’

Loras didn’t respond, simply gazed insolently back at Renly, and the young lord found himself cracking a smile despite himself.

‘Well, young Loras, Alyn here will get you settled in your new chambers and then bring you to me after your supper. I imagine you’re hungry after such a long ride.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘In that case, go and find your new chambers. I’ll have Alyn bring you something to eat and we’ll get to know each other a little better afterwards.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Renly retreated to his own chambers in his new squire’s wake, sitting down at his desk to read through the letter from Lord Mace Tyrell regarding his son. Loras, he was promised, was an intelligent and lively child – which Renly could read through the lines to glean meant difficult and wilful – with the desire to one day become a knight. Which boy in the Seven Kingdoms did not aspire to be a knight? Renly scoffed to himself, and tucked the letter away into a sheaf of papers beneath the book on warcraft Penrose had demanded he study. Renly, in his opinion, knew more than enough of life under siege, having spent most of his formative years barricaded inside Storm’s End with only Stannis, his old maester and the rats for company, and with his new squire’s family outside of the gates.

He pondered this for a long time whilst waiting for the boy to reappear, wandering up to the top of the castle to gaze out at the rocky clifftops and scrubland across which Loras had arrived, faint memories of green silk pavilions and fluttering golden rose banners in the wind bringing the siege to life before his eyes. Eventually he turned away again and headed back inside to listen to the waves crashing against the rocks below and watch the stars appear over the shifting ocean.

Loras was brought to Renly’s chambers a couple of moments later having clearly been scrubbed within an inch of his life. His skin was still buffed red, making the blotchy tan on his cheeks look even uglier in the candlelight, and his hair had clearly been brushed in an attempt to tame it gone wrong. Instead it stood out around his head like a small brown cloud, making him look like nothing so much as an angry dandelion, particularly dressed in his green Tyrell silks as he was. He folded his arms, glowering at Renly, and the young lord had to bite back a smile. Even having spent so little time in Loras’ company, he realised how proud a creature the little boy was, and had no desire to ruin what could be a budding friendship with a poor choice of words.

‘I see my servants have at least endeavoured to make you presentable after your long journey,’ Renly said, gesturing at Loras, and the boy’s eyes narrowed even further.

‘I don’t appreciate being treated like a child.’

‘Loras, I don’t know how to break this undoubtedly terrible news, but to them, you are a child. You’re a boy of ten. To my servants, _I’m_ a child, and I’m near four years your senior.’ He patted the coverlet beside him, inviting Loras to sit. The boy took the invitation as offered, but sat at the extreme end of the bed, out of arm’s reach, as though afraid Renly would subject him to more polishing and primping in the name of becoming presentable.

‘I don’t bite, you know,’ he teased, and Loras reluctantly shifted a little closer.

‘You know, I’ve never visited the Reach. Will you tell me about it?’

‘What does my lord wish to know?’ Loras asked.

‘Everything. Tell me about Highgarden and your family.’

‘My grandmother is Olenna Redwyne Tyrell, who wed my grandfather Luther Tyrell. My father is Mace Tyrell, Lord Paramount of the Reach and Warden of the South, wed to my mother, Alerie of House Hightower. I have two brothers, like my lord Renly, and a sister. My brothers are Willas and Garlan, and they are older than myself. My sister is Margaery, a year younger than me.’

‘A fine lineage, I’m sure. What are they like?’

‘Who, my lord?’

‘Your family,’ Renly said with a smile. ‘I’ve never made their acquaintance, and as I’ve taken their son to squire I had better get to know them as best I can. I’m trusting you to be my introduction to all things Tyrell.’

Loras’ stoic expression didn’t change, although he dropped a little of his formal tone from before. ‘My father is the Lord of the Reach, so he’s supposed to be in charge of everything at Highgarden, but really everybody knows that if they want anything they have to come to Grandmother. She’s known as the Queen of Thorns, which my father says suits her when he’s in his cups and my Grandmother often reminds him that thorns are sharper than roses. My brother Willas is the eldest of us, and he spends most of his time either reading about horses or working with them down in the stables. He’s entering the jousts for the first time this season, at the next tourney, and he’s raised a mare he bred from Dornish stock to ride. She’s grey with a blaze of white on her nose, and he’s called her Alba. He has promised to breed me a horse too, one I can ride in my first tourney, but I suppose I shall never get to ride it now.’ He sighed heavily, his face crumpling a little.

‘I understand that you will miss them,’ Renly said as gently as he could manage. The boy was ten after all, and this was likely the first time he’d been away from his family for any length of time. Such an upheaval was hard on anyone, and Renly wasn’t so heartless as to be blind to that fact. He patted the boy’s knee with one hand and was slightly relieved when Loras didn’t twitch away. ‘Tell me more about them. Perhaps it will cheer you up to tell me.’

‘My other brother is Garlan. He was terribly fat as a child, to the point that he nearly ended up with the nickname Garlan the Gross. He wants to be a knight like me, and he’s squiring for Lord Randyll Tarly at Horn Hill. I haven’t seen him in a year, he went to squire when he was twelve. He is allowed to visit on feast days, of course, because he comes with Lord Randyll, but Horn Hill is much closer than Storm’s End. Might I not be allowed to visit home as well, Lord Renly?’

‘I shall have to see,’ Renly said, a little uncomfortable. Penrose, he knew, would be entirely against the idea; visiting home did nothing good for children sent away to foster or squire, he insisted, only causing homesickness and misery to fester. Renly, who had no experience of the matter, could truthfully neither agree nor disagree. Nevertheless, this response seemed to placate Loras slightly and he brightened.

‘My sister is the youngest. I’m a year older than her, but not much taller.’ He scowled. ‘Mother says that my brothers were small until they reached an age, and then grew a foot in a year, but I’m still waiting for that to happen. Margaery is – was my best friend at home. We were always getting into trouble for running through the Fossoway’s orchards picking their apples, or else stealing berries from the Crakehalls’ hedgerows. One day she wore my clothes to come climbing trees and tore my best shirt, and Father wouldn’t believe it was her so I got sent to bed with no supper and she climbed out of her window and along the top of the armoury roof to my bedroom to bring me half of hers.’

Renly smiled at the idea of this small girl, the twin of Loras himself, clambering out of her window and darting along the tops of the roofs of Highgarden like a little monkey to bring her brother her supper.

‘It sounds as though you were as thick as thieves,’ he laughed, and Loras smiled. There was one crooked tooth in the corner of his mouth, turned slightly to the side amongst the others. Renly, whose teeth were white and straight and perfect in comparison, felt its presence keenly, although Loras himself did not seem shy.

‘We are, my lord.’

‘Will she write to you, do you think? I’m sure she will be having lots more adventures to tell you about.’

‘I hope so, my lord. I will miss her terribly otherwise.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Renly said lightly. ‘Now. You must be tired after such a long day. I shall let you go.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Loras said, and scrambled off the bed, disappearing through the door.

* * *

He was woken a couple of hours later by a weight depressing the mattress beside him, and Renly struggled upright and opened his eyes to see his squire, shivering slightly in the cold with his green cloak wrapped tightly around him, his eyes wide. There was a fearsome storm raging outside, rain lashing at the windows and wind pounding the walls of the castle so that it boomed and echoed like a giant’s stone drum, the waves reaching high against the cliffs below. Loras was trembling for all that he had set his jaw, biting his lip hard so as not to give away his fright. Renly, who had grown up in the castle and yet remembered the terror storms had inspired in him as a young child, wordlessly lifted the duvet and allowed the boy to crawl in next to him, huddling close under the coverlet.

‘Are you afraid, Loras?’ he asked softly, and the boy shook his head.

‘No, my lord. I’m not afraid of anything.’

‘I wish I were so brave as you, then. I still feel myself go a little faint all over whenever a spider enters my chambers, and I can’t bear to be outside when there is lightning about for fear of becoming the third Dornishman.’

‘The third Dornishman, my lord?’ Loras asked curiously.

‘Have you not heard the tale? House Dondarrion’s famous lightning.’ Renly settled a little more comfortably against his pillows. ‘If you like, I can tell you the story, if you don’t know it already.’

‘I don’t, my lord.’ Loras hesitated a moment. ‘And… it might help take my mind off the storm.’

‘Indeed it might. Are you settled comfortably?’ Renly asked, and Loras nodded. ‘Good. Then I’ll begin.’

He glanced over at Loras and was surprised to see the boy fixing his whole attention on Renly, clear brown eyes on his face. He cleared his throat a little awkwardly.

‘House Dondarrion, as I’m sure you know, is a house sworn to the service of the Baratheons here at Storm’s End. Their seat is Blackhaven, some day’s ride to the south and west. I’d warrant you passed it on your journey up here from the Reach. Their sigil is the split lightning, purple on a field of black with four-pointed stars.’ Loras nodded, so he continued.

‘Well, the story goes that it was the first Lord Dondarrion who devised the sigil after lightning came to his aid. It was said that the night was stormy, full of clouds and rolling thunder like the roll of sticks on a drum, the wind howling and whipping at his cape, drowning out all other sounds. A messenger was rushing to Blackhaven across the Dornish Marches, battling the storm every step of the way, his horse struggling against the wind and the rain so fierce in his eyes that he could hardly see. He was riding hard for home to deliver the message when an arrow flew through the air and felled his horse from beneath him. He was tangled in the poor creature’s legs and strappings as he fell, and had to fight to get himself free. As he stood, he looked for his assailant, because arrows do not fly from nowhere. Seeing two Dornishmen in ringmail and crested helms come out of the darkness, his hand went to his sword to discover it broken in the fall, and so he had little to defend himself.

‘The storm heaved and crashed around them, and the messenger was fearing himself about to be killed there in Dorne as the two men closed in around him. His horse was breathing her last behind him, the arrow wound mortal, and he was readying himself for the fight for his life when a roll of thunder echoed and lightning flashed not three feet from his face. It was a bright, burning purple, and split there before his eyes to strike the Dornishmen in their steel where they stood, and they were killed without the messenger having to raise a finger. The message he carried gave the Storm King victory over the Dornish, and in thanks he raised the messenger to lordship. This was the first Lord Dondarrion, and so he took for his sigil the forked lightning on the field of stars.

‘And so I hold lightning in a healthy respect, and won’t ever venture out in a lightning storm for fear of becoming the third Dornishman.’ Renly grinned at Loras, and the boy smiled back.

‘Surely you have nothing to fear if you are not wearing steel?’

‘Suppose I should meet two more Dornishmen willing to kill me for my paperwork?’ Renly asked with false terror, and Loras laughed aloud, his face brightening. His mouth opened wide as he laughed, his crooked tooth flashing white as lightning forked outside of the window, and Renly grinned, pleased to have the boy warm up to him a little at last. As unsightly as he was the rest of the time, Loras’ face in that moment was tolerable, almost nice. His skin was still burnt red and tan in places by the Reach’s summer sun, and his hair was as wild as ever, but happiness was truly transformative, and Renly could not deny the wonders it worked on his squire.

* * *

Renly’s bed was empty when he awoke, which he had expected. He had arisen to the sounds of banging and clashing from the yard below his window, where the master at arms was no doubt drilling the squires in training to become knights. Renly crossed over to the glass, peering out at them all, looking for the familiar mop of wild frizz belonging to Loras, but there was no sign of his squire anywhere in the yard. Surprised and more than a little curious, Renly quickly got dressed and made his way down to the yard to ask the master at arms whether he had seen the boy anywhere.

Ser Arven Wayle, the master at arms at Storm’s End, was, like most in his profession, a middle-aged man, a knight of a lesser house, battle-scarred and with a voice that could strip the enamel off Renly’s armour. His hair was greying, what little he had left of it, and he was currently howling at one of the younger squires to treat the practise sword like a sword and not like something that would chew his arm off if he actually held it for any length of time. The boy seemed to be even more scared of Wayle than he was of his opponent’s sword, and looked to be near tears by the time Renly interrupted to ask about Loras. The master at arms didn’t answer beyond a gruff ‘There, my lord,’ and a stubby, dirty finger pointed at a shady tree at the opposite end of the yard where a small cloud of brown curls was bent over something on the ground.

Renly thanked Ser Arven and headed over to see what his squire was up to. Avoiding a pile of horse dung the stablehands had not yet cleared, Renly joined his squire in the scrubby patch of grass and knelt down to see what the boy was doing. He had a set of toy soldiers in his small hands, all painted in the expected green and gold colours. He was entirely absorbed in creating a mock battle when Renly knelt down beside him, and from the formations of men on the ‘field’ Renly thought he recognised the Battle of the Field of Fire. Renly picked up one of the soldiers to look it over and was amused to see that Loras had blackened the paintwork with soot from the fireplace to better replicate the black armour of House Targaryen.

‘What are you playing?’ he asked, and Loras answered without looking up.

‘Soldiers, my lord.’

‘Would you like me to join you?’

‘If my lord wishes,’ Loras replied. Renly, deciding this was likely the best he would get from his squire, took that as invitation enough and chose the side of House Targaryen. Loras had given the knights’ horses ‘wings’ made from leaves, which made Renly snort with laughter. Loras looked up and saw Renly admiring his handiwork, mistaking his admiration for Loras’ inventive practicality for scorn, and his already flushed face reddening with embarrassment.

‘Don’t mock me,’ he said, snatching the horse figure back and collecting up his toys. ‘If you think it below you to… to spend time with me then I beg your pardon, my lord, but I shall remove myself from your presence.’

‘Loras, calm down,’ Renly said, holding his hands up placatingly. ‘I meant no harm. I was simply impressed with your idea. When I pretended to be a dragon as a child all I did was hold the corners of a cape out like wings. I was impressed that you had found leaves so lifelike–’ and indeed they were, with spiky points and thin, membranous flesh stretched between the ‘bones’ that formed the points, something like sycamore to Renly’s understanding – ‘and at your knowledge of the battle. It was the dragons that gave away the Field of Fire to me, which Maester Cressen would no doubt despair of me for. You have a rare memory for things like this. History was always so dull to me.’

Loras did not appear much mollified, although he slowly set his toys back down. ‘If I want to become a knight, I have to learn about those before me. Otherwise I’ll never be good enough by the time I’m fourteen.’

‘You want to be a knight at fourteen?’

‘I want to be one of the sworn seven of the kingsguard at fourteen. I shall settle for becoming a knight perhaps a little earlier.’ Loras shrugged. ‘If Jaime Lannister can do it at fifteen, I can do it younger. I’m better than he ever was.’ He sounded so sure of himself that Renly had to smile, this small boy of ten years proclaiming himself better than the best knight to have come out of the Seven Kingdoms since Barristan the Bold.

‘If that’s so,’ Renly said with a smile, ‘then perhaps you might like to join me in a friendly match? We can spar with the wooden swords. No doubt Ser Arven would appreciate seeing me taking my martial training seriously for once, even if I’m paired with a boy half my age.’

‘If you think you won’t be too ashamed to be beaten, my lord,’ Loras answered, as bold as ever, and Renly raised an eyebrow.

‘Was that… a challenge I heard, young Tyrell?’

‘If my lord wishes.’

Renly grinned, throwing an arm around Loras’ shoulders and guiding him over to the arena to pick up a couple of the other squires’ discarded swords. For all of Loras’ bravado, he was not expecting much from the slip of a boy in front of him. Even Penrose had not allowed Renly to pick up a sword, wooden or otherwise, until he was at least six years of age. Renly had had eight years of training since then to Loras’ four. Renly would go easy on him.

Loras followed suit, picking up a sword and swinging it easily, testing his grip and the weight before raising it into a defensive position. Renly laughed, rolling his wrist to loosen it before settling into position. Loras, for all that his size and age was a disadvantage, had adopted a poised, steady position, quick eyes darting over Renly’s entire body in anticipation of the first blow. Far be it from Renly to make his squire wait. He struck out at Loras, fast but making sure to check his strength. Loras looked a little caught off guard by the speed of the attack, but his arm moved up instinctively to block it, and their swords clacked together as the boy successfully held Renly off.

Renly pressed the attack again, several blows in quick succession, and laughed as Loras deflected them carefully, glancing blows of his sword just hard enough to check Renly’s movements and allow the younger boy time to move out of reach. Studying his squire during the fight, Renly observed that Loras evidently did know what he was doing. He was quick, much quicker than Renly at nearly twice his height could move, and Loras’ eyes never left him, visibly analysing everything Renly was doing to get a better understanding of his fighting style.

Renly swung again and Loras ducked, flicking his own sword out to crack against Renly’s shin. Renly yelped in pain, hopping on his uninjured leg, and Loras hit him again, a blow to his ribs that would leave a nasty bruise. He swung his sword around, smiling, crooked tooth flashing in the sunlight.

‘Come on, my lord. I understood you were to be a challenge!’

‘If you don’t check that tongue of yours I shall tie you up by your ankles and have you spar with me upside down from the guard rail,’ Renly teased, gingerly returning to stand on two feet. He was steady enough, but had clearly underestimated his little squire, and from now on would not be holding back. Loras gave a jab towards him, instigating the next bout, and Renly swung to block it, putting more force behind the movement before pressing his advantage. He rained down blows on Loras, his whole strength behind them, and watched in surprised pleasure as Loras continued to hold him off, although his small arms were shaking with the effort.

He moved again, and Loras began to duck, anticipating another high blow. Renly feinted and struck low, catching his squire in the ribs, and a crack like a splitting rock echoed around the practise yard as Loras gasped in pain. Renly’s heart skipped in his chest, lowering his sword to check on the boy, and Loras retaliated with a swing that laid the full length of his sword against the side of Renly’s head with a blow that made his ears ring and split the skin, blood trickling down the side of his face. He staggered, hand coming up to assess the damage, and Loras – tiny, skinny Loras, now standing favouring his injured side and breathing raggedly – levelled the sword at Renly and hissed, ‘Yield.’

‘I yield,’ Renly nodded breathlessly, feeling dizzy. Loras all but collapsed to kneel on the floor, pressing his hand against his ribs with another sharp intake of breath. Renly knelt down beside him, ignoring the flow of warmth down over his temple and jawline, and pressed his own hand to the boy’s ribs. Loras yelled and lashed out at him, a small fist pounding Renly’s chest.

‘Get off me!’

‘I’m just checking that you’re alright,’ Renly said, stung. Loras glared at him.

‘I’m fine. I’m not some delicate little thing you have to treat like porcelain.’

‘Loras, you’re ten and half my size. I could have killed you if we were using proper steel.’

‘And I would have taken the top of your head off,’ Loras argued, struggling up to stand with the assistance of a couple of empty barrels. He pulled up his shirt to inspect his side, where an angry, swollen purple bruise was already developing against the pale skin. He dropped his shirt again with a ragged sigh and glanced at the injury he’d inflicted upon his liege lord in turn. ‘You’re bleeding.’

‘I know. It doesn’t matter. You might have broken a rib.’

‘ _You_ might have broken my rib, you mean.’

‘Alright, _I_ might have broken your rib. We should get you to a maester.’

‘I’m fine,’ Loras protested. Instead, he bade Renly kneel and removed his shirt – baring a skinny, pale chest speckled with freckles and grazes from past adventures to the sunlight – to press against the wound on Renly’s head. His hands, so firm and capable with a sword, are light and timid against the injury, and Renly feels his heart soften even more towards the boy.

* * *

The following days heralded some of the best weather the Stormlands ever have. Cloudy skies with a few emergences of sunlight through thin patches, the air crisp with salt from the bay, and warm enough to ride without a cloak. Renly suggested to Loras that they go exploring, so that he can show Loras the country in which he will be making his home for the foreseeable future. He remembered Loras’ tales of picking apples from the Fossoways’ orchards and exploring the countryside of the Reach, so he thought it would be the perfect way to get to know his squire properly, and was pleased when Loras readily agreed.

Loras had the horses saddled and ready to leave by the time Renly had finished breakfast (for which he was roused early by his squire, who had heard the word ‘exploring’ and immediately planned to leave at the crack of dawn and return either never or at the very least, late at night). He was tapping a small foot impatiently beside his grey mare when Renly walked into the stable yard.

‘At last!’

‘Had I known you were so eager to explore the place you seemed so determined to hate when you arrived, I would have been down earlier,’ Renly said, grinning at his squire. Loras rolled his eyes and waited whilst Renly climbed onto his horse. Renly shouted a brief instruction to the servants not to bother with a lunch for him, and nudged his gelding into a trot, leading Loras out of the castle gates and on towards the tip of the Dornish Marches and towards the Kingswood.

As they rode he chattered about everything under the sun, from the new clothes he would be having made for Loras in the Baratheon house colours to the different birds they could hear singing among the marsh rushes and in the trees. The sound of the waves against the shore faded the further inland they rode, and the absence of their susurrations made him, as always, a little uneasy. Having grown up around the sea, Renly found the sounds of waves and water soothing and homely, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere without those delicate wet whisperings in his ears. Loras, on the contrary, had ridden ahead and seemed to become more at home as they left the sea behind and enveloped themselves instead in the green sounds of things growing, the smell of wildflowers amongst the scrubby underbrush, and the calls of birds and small things.

He turned around in his saddle to look at Renly as they passed a large pond, shaded by trees on the track side.

‘What do you grow here?’

‘I understand the smallfolk have an excellent crop of potatoes in the places the soil is rich enough,’ Renly answered, glancing around. ‘Mostly vegetables in truth. The Stormlands haven’t the soil for fruit crops like the Reach. Hence why we have to import all of our wine from Dorne, and our cider and mead from your good cousins. One thing I wish we could grow here are peaches. I’ve loved them since I was your age; I tasted them for the first time after the siege, and they were the first thing other than onions I’d eaten in weeks. To this day it takes a great force of will to eat an onion.’ He shook his head with a laugh.

Loras smiled. ‘We grow peaches in Highgarden. Mother has her own orchard, and she grows all sorts of fruits and flowers. There are roses that climb all the way up the side of the castle, and Father made Margaery a swing on the branches of an oak in the corner. We used to stand on the swing to climb up into the tree, and then we could get into every other tree just by climbing across. We used to sit and have competitions to see who could spit the peach stones furthest. I once got one all the way into Grandmother’s rose garden,’ Loras said proudly, before he winced a little. ‘It hit her.’

Renly laughed, and Loras grinned back, spurring his horse into a canter. Renly picked up his own pace in response, and within minutes they were racing across the countryside, jumping low walls and stiles, Loras whooping with sheer delight, curls flying back in the wind. They raced until the horses raised a lather, at which point they tied them by the reins to the branch of a tree and took the rest of their journey on foot.

Loras almost immediately shinned up the first tree he could find, ignoring the roughness of the bark on his hands and the way twigs snagged his clothes and hair. Renly, who had taken all of a moment to straighten his doublet out, looked up again to find his squire disappeared completely from view without so much as a footprint to lead him in the right direction. He wandered around in confusion, calling Loras’ name and squinting up amongst the branches of the trees to see if he could catch sight of him.

Loras picked an acorn off a tree and threw it, stifling a laugh into his hand as it pinged off the top of Renly’s head, making the older boy spin around.

‘Where are you?’

He threw another acorn, this time hitting Renly’s shoulder. His liege lord fought a smile and peered amongst the branches of the nearest tree – completely the wrong tree. Loras threw more tiny missiles until Renly located the oak in which he was hiding, standing at the bottom of the trunk and looking up at him with an undeniable smile on his face.

‘I think your lord father made a mistake sending me a boy to squire. I think he sent me a monkey instead.’

Loras flung a handful of acorns at him in retort and Renly grasped the branch above his head, swinging himself up and into the tree determinedly.

‘Right,’ he laughed, eyes narrowing on Loras’ crouching form, ‘I’m going to come up there and–’

‘And what, my lord? What will you do?’ Loras laughed, edging higher among the branches. A flurry of feathers out of the corner of his eye made him look just in time to see a blackbird burst out of the tree cover, having been startled by his approach. He looked back down to see Renly reaching up to grasp his foot, tugging gently with a teasing smile.

‘I’ve got you by the tail, monkey,’ he grinned, and Loras climbed down so that they were on similar levels. He opened his hand to give Renly some of the acorns he’d gathered, and they sat together on a thick branch, Renly rolling an acorn between his fingers thoughtfully as Loras reached around him to pluck more. They continued this for several minutes before a thought struck Loras and he turned to look at Renly, dropping his acorns into his lap.

‘Did you ever play games like this with your brothers?’

‘What? Games like throwing acorns at them from a tree?’ Renly asked. ‘No. I was too young. Robert was a man grown, or thereabouts, by the time I was born, and Stannis not much younger. As a child I had only the maester, Penrose, and myself for company. I used to invent playmates for myself, ones that only I could see. There were months, Penrose says, when I was four or five and I used to pretend I had my own dragon, a great scaly golden beast with a crown on its head that I would ride for hours, surveying the kingdom. I would soar so high I could touch clouds, above even the Eyrie, or skim over the waves among the Iron Islands to see them in their rowing boats. I’d tell it to breathe fire over the hordes of soldiers at our walls so that we could go free–’ His voice trailed off as he glanced over at Loras.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said quietly. ‘I understand that it wasn’t their fault, that it was the Mad King’s.’

Loras didn’t answer, so Renly cleared his throat awkwardly and changed the subject.

‘Did I tell you I once pretended to be the rain god during a storm? Penrose came out onto the battlements to find me almost stark naked but for a cape around my shoulders and a loincloth made from an old shirt. I was cavorting about shrieking and dancing on top of the tallest tower, and a wind caught the cape just as I was holding it out. It blew out like a sail and would have taken me halfway out to sea if Penrose hadn’t caught me by the arm. I had bruises for a week from the force of his grasp, and my ears rang for a month from the tongue-lashing I got afterwards.’

‘How old were you?’ Loras asked, his eyes wide.

‘Twelve,’ Renly said, and his squire burst out laughing.

* * *

That night another storm blew in just as they arrived back at the castle. Renly took one look at his squire and led Loras up the stairs to his own chambers, bidding him run a bath whilst Renly called for some food to be brought up. They’d eaten little all day other than what they could find– some strawberries, fingernail-sized and sharp-tasting, and a pigeon Loras had killed with a stone thrown from a treetop and roasted over a fire – and the boy was shaking. As Loras busied himself fetching the hot water, Renly shuffled through the letters on his desk. Several were invitations from lords of houses in the vicinity inviting him for a feast, which he resolved to think through more in the morning. The last, however, was a letter not for him, but for Loras, in a girl’s smooth script. He pulled it out of the pile and left it by the bath tub.

Once the tub was filled, he stripped off his clothes and clambered in, making sure to scrub the dirt from a day spent in a tree off his skin and massaging the soap through his hair. He hated to take a bath without washing his hair, as he felt he was never truly clean unless every last inch of him had been scrubbed down. He smiled to himself remembering the sight of Loras scrubbed raw by the servants and looking like a drowned cat. The boy was lingering nervously by the door, clearly unwilling to step closer to the centre of the room where the wind and the ocean reverberated in the cool air.

‘Loras, a letter arrived for you today,’ Renly told him, hoping to distract him from the storm. He picked it up and held it out for him, and his squire crept over to sit by the tub, breaking the seal and unfolding the letter with trembling hands.

‘It’s from my sister,’ he told Renly, ‘it’s from Margaery.’

‘Is she well? And the rest of your family?’ he asked, holding his nose shut before sliding down under the water to rinse the soap out of his hair. He reemerged with a ripple of water and a quiet gasp, and Loras smiled briefly over his shoulder, eyes scanning the rest of the letter.

‘She’s well. They all are. She writes about the cook’s cat who’s just had her kittens, and the starling nest on the top of the library tower where the chicks are beginning to fly. She’s eaten four of the new pears this season which all gave her stomach-ache, and she won’t listen to Willas when he tells her they’re not ripe yet.’ His voice cracked slightly. ‘She misses me.’

‘You must miss them all too,’ Renly said, as kindly as he could manage. Loras nodded miserably.

‘Do you not miss your family, my lord?’

‘I didn’t know my parents enough to miss them, in truth. They were shipwrecked in the bay before I even reached my first name day. And my brother Robert was off to foster in the Eyrie not long after, and Stannis… Stannis was the one who raised me, true enough, but he doesn’t have a personality that lends itself to being missed all that often.’ He smiled at Loras. ‘I wasn’t close enough to any of them to miss them the way you must miss your brothers and sister, and your mother and father. I’m sorry in that regard, that I don’t truly know how you feel and therefore offer you comfort. Perhaps I could tell you another story instead, to calm your nerves a little?’

‘I’d like that,’ Loras said quietly, and Renly nodded.

‘I’ll tell you the story of the castle, I think. I know you’re afraid of the storms, and I can imagine having come from the Reach where everything is much milder and sunnier that they must seem like a raging, vengeful god’s wrath to you. And they are, or so the tales say. But, you know, the castle will never fall to a storm. I can promise you that. It’s how Storm’s End got its name.

‘Storm’s End was built by the founder of House Durrandon, an old family of the Stormlands before the Andals came across the narrow sea. His name was Durran, later named Godsgrief, for he won the heart of Elenei, who was daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind. Because she fell in love with a mortal, Elenei doomed herself to a mortal’s death, and her mother and father were furious with Durran for condemning her to such a fate. In their wrath, they sent raging storms to destroy the castle Durran built on this clifftop. The storm tore the castle down, every last stone, and Durran survived the wreckage only because Elenei stood over him, shielding him from the rain and the wind which could do her no harm as the daughter of the gods.

‘Durran vowed to rebuild, and so he did; raised another castle, grander and stronger than before, and the gods sent another storm. The castle crumbled once again, and the castle after that, and the castle after that until he was beginning to despair. Finally, as he was planning to construct what would be his last castle, a boy stopped on the clifftop and taught him a new way to place the stones, so tight together the wind would not gain purchase enough to tear them apart. Nor would the rain reach to break the windows. Durran raised this new castle a hundred feet tall, its walls eighty feet thick, and when it was complete the gods sent another storm. It raged for a day and a night, with wind like fists against the walls of the castle, trying to break it down. The waters seethed below it, trying to crumble the foundations. The rain lashed and lashed. But the castle stood.

‘The boy who helped build the castle became Brandon the Builder as he grew, and Durran, with Elenei at his side, became the first Storm King. He reigned at Storm’s End, his castle, the same castle we sit in now, for a thousand years. Or so the stories say.’ He smiled softly at his squire. ‘So, Loras, you have nothing to fear. This castle has stood for thousands of years, through thousands of storms, and no doubt will continue to do so for thousands more.’

The boy nodded, breathing calmer and smoother. Renly dunked his head under water one last time to rinse out the last of the soap, and then climbed out of the tub. Loras fetched him a robe and sat, with Renly between his knees on a cushion, rubbing his hair dry with a clean cloth, careful not to tug at any tangles. Once it was no longer dripping down his back, Renly stood up and moved to empty the bath.

‘What are you doing?’ Loras asked, jumping up to help. ‘That’s my job!’

‘I’m emptying the water, and then I want you to fetch more hot water and take a bath yourself. You’re covered in dirt and filth, and I refuse to have a grubby squire.’

‘I could just use your water.’

‘That I’ve just scrubbed off all my mud and filth into? No. Get me some clean water and then come back here so I can get you into a fit state again.’

When Alyn brought the food a few moments later, Renly told Loras to eat whilst Alyn emptied the bath. When it was clear again, he asked for more water to be brought and joined Loras in a seat beside the fire, carrying the plate of food over to share. Loras had picked at what was there, taking only a sliver of cheese and some bread; Renly scraped half of the pigeon stew onto his squire’s plate and handed him another slice of bread, his expression brooking no argument when Loras opened his mouth to protest. They ate in silence, Loras shy, Renly trying not to press him.

‘I hope your chest is better,’ he offered eventually, gesturing to where he had hit Loras with the practice sword a few days before. Loras nodded.

‘A wicked bruise, my lord, but otherwise I’m well.’

‘Loras, will you do something for me?’ Renly asked suddenly, putting his plate down on the floor and turning to look at his squire. Loras glanced up at him from under the wild tangle of his hair, his head cocked in confusion.

‘Yes, my lord. Of course.’

‘Will you call me Renly? When it’s just the two of us like this there’s no need for the ‘my lord’s. I would like us to be friends, and I’m quite sure your friends don’t call you ‘my lord’.’

‘Yes, my – Renly. Yes, Renly.’ Loras shovelled another chunk of bread into his mouth awkwardly, and Renly snorted softly. His squire carried himself like a lord, and yet behaved like the commonest farmhand at the strangest of times. He always looked as though he’d been carousing through the marshes, covered in mud and with hair more akin to a bird’s nest than anything else, clothes torn and snagged and with scrapes and grazes on any patches of exposed skin from his adventures. He had a shallow slice over one cheekbone, a result of having angered a bird whilst trying to inspect her nest this afternoon. He’d been cheerful enough about it, having called for Renly to climb up and look, but his lord did somewhat despair of ever being able to make him look acceptable.

The bath was filled and warmed by the turn of the hour, and Renly turned away to give the boy some privacy whilst he stripped and climbed into the bath. As soon as Loras was in the water, however, Renly attacked him with the soap and a cloth, scrubbing the dirt off his narrow shoulders and being sure to clean any new cuts and grazes he found. Loras hissed and splashed like an angry wildcat, but Renly forced him to stay still with a firm hand on his shoulder.

‘Dunk your head under,’ he told Loras firmly, ‘you need to wash your hair.’

‘I washed it a week ago!’ Loras protested.

‘High time to wash it again then, in my opinion,’ Renly told him, and shoved the boy under the water for a moment before pulling him back up, coughing and spluttering. He ignored Loras’ hunched shoulders and fierce glares of disapproval as he worked soap into a lather on the boy’s head, trying to be as gentle as he could and yet seeming to find a new tangle every time he moved so much as a finger. Eventually he gave up and picked up a comb, dragging it through the knotted locks until they parted and smoothed under his fingers.

‘I should be doing this myself,’ Loras said finally, glowering at him. ‘It’s not right for a lord to wash his squire.’

‘Well, perhaps if my squire was less of a dirty little monkey who thought himself too busy to be clean, I wouldn’t have to,’ Renly teased. ‘Rinse.’

Loras obediently ducked under the water, coming up a moment later with his hair plastered over his face. He pushed it aside to look Renly in the eyes, and Renly had to notice that his skin was beginning to clear, the redness of the sunburn fading and leaving a delicate golden tan behind. He was still as unsightly as ever – crooked tooth and freckles and blemishes all over his cheeks and nose – but there was, for the first time, the sense of something beautiful half-formed in his squire, waiting to come out when the time was right. He was only ten, of course. But roses stayed tight in their buds until the time came to bloom, and Renly was sure his squire, the second-youngest of Highgarden’s four roses, would do the same.

* * *

The spate of good weather lasted no longer than a week, however, and for the next few days they were confined to the inside of the castle lest Loras, still recovering from his sparring match injury, catch a chill of the chest. This, Renly would hasten to add, was on orders from the maester, who had suffered an earful of the Reach’s most creative curses for his edict. Loras was still sulking in Renly’s chambers by the time dinner rolled around on the first day of their confinement, and was not amused when Renly suggested a game to keep him occupied.

‘I don’t want to play a game with you,’ he snapped, staring moodily out of the window at the pouring rain outside. ‘I want to be out, fighting, learning to joust, practising. I don’t want to be stuck in here with only books for company.’

‘Am I not company enough?’ Renly asked, pretending to be wounded. Loras rolled his eyes.

‘You know what I meant.’

‘I do. How about we create new playmates for ourselves. Imagine them. You could have a dragon of your own. Or a horse that can fly. Or a speaking dog. We could do anything.’

‘Imagining things is your game, Renly. I want to do something real.’

‘A compromise then. We’ll play at being real stories. You could be Aegon the Conqueror, coming to take the land from the Andals amid fire and smoke.’ He grinned. ‘And I can be Orys Baratheon.’

‘Why not put on a skirt and be one of his wives?’ Loras teased. ‘You’re comely enough.’

Renly cocked his head with a snort of laughter. ‘Comely, Loras? Was that a compliment?’

‘No,’ Loras said, pressing a finger to his chin in mock thought. ‘On second thoughts, perhaps not. You’re not comely enough for a Targaryen. You have the hair and the size for Balerion, though. You should be my Black Dread.’ He laughed at the expression on Renly’s face, torn between insult and amusement.

‘You know, Loras, the Baratheons do have a drop of Targaryen in us from somewhere down the line.’

‘Well, that explains the rain god fantasy in the middle of the storm.’ Loras smirked at him.

‘For such a small boy, you’re very insolent,’ Renly laughed. ‘You need to treat dragons with respect, Loras, otherwise they’ll burn you alive.’

‘Ah, but I’m not Loras,’ Loras said, raising his chin commandingly, ‘I’m Aegon of the House Targaryen, come to conquer the Seven Kingdoms of the Andals and become ruler of Westeros.’

‘My liege,’ Renly said with a sweeping bow, and then crouched on all fours and gave a roar, tossing his head the way he imagined a dragon would whilst breathing fire. Loras grinned, jumping off his seat to clamber up onto Renly’s back. The older boy picked him up and onto his shoulders, holding out his arms for sweeping wings as Loras directed him towards the bed, designated for their purposes as the Blackwater Rush where Aegon first landed. Renly swooped a couple of times around it, arms out, before bending forwards suddenly to deposit Loras, head over heels, onto the mattress with a shriek of laughter.

‘Build your Aegonfort, rider,’ Renly told him in a deep, growling voice, the voice of Balerion, ‘I need to hunt.’ He wandered away whilst Loras, still laughing, made a mound of pillows and cushions on the bed, padding the posts and lowering the canopy to create a fort as instructed. Renly came back a few moments later with a bowl of fruits, medlars and figs from Dorne, Reach apples and peaches, and he sat down on the bed to share them with Loras.

His squire was flushed with happiness, eyes sparkling, laughter curling the corners of his mouth into a smile. Renly offered him a peach and he took it, biting deep and taking the fruit away from his mouth to leave a dribble of juice over his chin. His hair, so neat when Renly had made him brush it that morning, was mussed and tousled as ever, and there was stitching already coming loose from his new Baratheon tunic. Renly couldn’t bring himself to care. This is what he had been missing as a child; the pleasure of another’s company, the sound of a friend’s laughter in his ears, sharing treats stolen from the kitchen beneath the drawn canopies of the bed and playing at being kings of their own world.

‘Did you know, Renly,’ Loras asked, wiping his chin on his sleeve, ‘peaches grow from plants related to roses. Willas read it in a book somewhere and he told me, and Willas is never wrong about things like that.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Renly told him, smiling. ‘That’s two of my favourite things that come from the Reach.’

‘Two things?’ Loras asked curiously.

‘Peaches and roses.’

Loras’ smile dimmed a little. He took another enormous bite of his peach, his cheeks puffed out like one of those Summer Island fishes, barely seeming to chew before he swallowed the mouthful of fruit. Renly shook his head fondly.

‘Take smaller bites, you brute.’

‘I’ll show you brute,’ Loras retorted, eyes glittering with the challenge, and pried the stone loose with his crooked tooth to open the curtains around the bed frame and spit it clear across the room into the grate. Renly stared at him for a long moment before cracking a grin, using his fingers to wrench the pit of his own peach free and sucking it into his mouth to challenge Loras. He managed to spit it far enough to hit the hearth, although it bounced off and landed in a shadowy corner somewhere out of view. Loras threw his arms in the air and crowed with victory.

‘Aegon conquers again!’

‘I don’t recall the Great Peach Stone Spitting Invasion of House Targaryen,’ Renly snorted. Loras laughed, finishing his peach in two bites and picking a medlar out of the bowl.

‘You know, the Reach has a nickname for these, too.’

‘Go on.’

‘Dogs’ arses.’

‘You’re lying to me,’ Renly said with an incredulous bark of laughter. ‘That’s obscene!’

‘Do you not think they look like them, though? All puckered around here–’ Loras pointed on the fruit, his eyes sparkling wickedly, and Renly shoved at him, laughing. It quickly devolved into a wrestling match there on the mattress, Loras trying to shove his ‘dog’s arse’ into Renly’s mouth to distract him, Renly keeping his lips firmly closed and struggling to keep the boy still. They rolled around on the bed, Loras hollering ‘Eat it! Eat the dog’s arse!’ loud enough to draw all of the servants in the castle, and Renly begging him to stop before somebody accused him of improper conduct with the kennel residents.

Penrose drew back the curtains a split second later to find Renly on his back, Loras atop him with a medlar in one hand and another crushing the bletted fruit against Renly’s lips. Both of them were laughing, and Penrose – who had been drawn by the noise, thinking that the pair of them were having a duel with candlesticks or otherwise attempting to kill one another out of cabin fever – simply rolled his eyes and walked away.

‘I will not,’ Renly said, pushing Loras off him gently and catching his breath. ‘I will never be able to eat a medlar again knowing I have consumed what the Reach calls a dog’s arse.’

Loras grinned at him, breaking the fruit in half, and popped it in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to God that 'dogs' arses' is a real nickname for medlar fruits. It's from the medieval French and it was on a BBC programme about Tudor confectionery, which I trust implicitly. Either way, it was too hilarious to skip the opportunity to have Loras yelling 'eat the dog's arse!' at Renly. It needed to happen.


End file.
